Shuttle to spend extra day in space
Space shuttle Discovery will remain docked at the International Space Station a day longer than planned to allow the crew to do more work, Nasa has said.
“We have accumulated enough consumables to formally declare we have the capabilities to extend the mission one day.
“This will allow the crew to have more work done and transfer more items,” said Wayne Hale, deputy manager of the shuttle programme, during a press conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on Saturday.
Earlier, two of the crew completed a seven-hour spacewalk to restore a space station steering device and test shuttle heat shield repairs that might give crews a better chance of avoiding a Columbia-like disaster.
“You did a great job today,” Mission Control’s Mike Massimino radioed to the crew as rookie spacewalkers Stephen Robinson and Soichi Noguchi tucked back inside the shuttle’s airlock after nearly seven hours outside the ship.
“They were moving as if they’ve been out there their whole lives,” added lead spacewalk coordinator Cindy Begley. “I’m just more than happy with the performance today.”
The astronauts finished all the tasks assigned for their first spacewalk and had time for extra work, such as retrieving a pair of science experiments and photographing a loose insulation blanket near the commander’s window.
Nasa is meticulously scrutinising and documenting the smallest of nicks and blemishes in the shuttle’s protective heat shield to understand how much damage the ship can withstand and still safely return to Earth.
So far, engineers have not found anything that threatens Discovery’s ability to endure the tremendous heat and forces of atmospheric re-entry.
Columbia disaster
Nasa lost Columbia on 1 February 2003, because its wing had been damaged during lift-off by a chunk of foam insulation that fell off the shuttle’s fuel tank.
As the shuttle plunged through the atmosphere for landing, superheated gases blasted into the wing and destroyed the ship, killing the seven astronauts aboard.
Nasa is concerned about the loss |
While Nasa has no remedy for a hole the size of the one that downed Columbia, engineers are developing materials that future crews might be able to use to patch small but potentially threatening areas.
Robinson and Noguchi spent the first part of their spacewalk using a caulking gun, putty knives and other tools to fill cracks in sample heat-resistant tiles and wing panel pieces that had been deliberately damaged for the test.
The astronauts worked only on the sample materials in the payload bay and did not touch any of the minor damage caused during lift-off to Discovery’s heat shield.
Robinson got to work first, squeezing out thick black beads of a heat-resistant product called NOAX, then working the material into cracks and gouges in the sample wing panel.
Bubbling
“I see just a little bit of bubbling,” he said. “It’s about like pizza dough.”
Noguchi then used another device similar to a shoe polish applicator to dab a material, known as an emittance wash, on to damaged heat-shield tile samples.
Engineers will study the repaired sample tiles and wing panels after the shuttle returns to Earth.
The spacewalkers then turned their attention to space station repairs, installing a new Global Positioning System antenna, reviving a backup gyroscope used for orienting the outpost and setting up power cables and mechanical connections for new equipment to be installed during two other spacewalks on Monday and Wednesday.
A 15-metre robot arm wil take |
During the outing, Discovery’s robot arm operators Jim Kelly and Charlie Camarda repositioned a 50-foot (15-metre) boom so laser scanners could take more high-resolution images of the shuttle’s wing panels.
John Shannon, a flight operations manager, said the additional inspections were intended to help engineers learn what to look for on future flights.
“These are not areas that are giving us great concern for the health of the vehicle,” he said.
Major concern
What is of major concern is the loss of several large pieces of foam insulation from Discovery’s tank during launch.
While none of the big pieces is believed to have hit the orbiter, sensors and radar analysis suggest the wings were struck by smaller bits of foam debris.
Nasa spent more than two years redesigning the fuel tank so it would not shed foam. Nasa administrator Mike Griffin has said more work must be done before the shuttles will fly again.
The next shuttle mission to the station had been targeted for September, but with postponement likely, Nasa is expected to approve station managers’ request for the Discovery crew to remain at the outpost an extra day.
The astronauts would use the time to transfer more equipment to the station and help fix some station equipment, such as the treadmill.
If the extension day is approved, Discovery would be rescheduled for landing in Florida on 8 August.